So Sakai gave away a little information about the New Year Update (info thanks to bumped.org), Attack of the Clones is the new thing. Sounds like an Emergency Mission where your team is randomly teleported away and you have to escape. Also while trying to escape, you'll fight copies of other players that have also completed the mission. This actually sounds really fun. Hopefully its hard. It also sounds like a way for them to test if PvP would work or not. What do you guys think?

Syklo

Dec 5, 2012, 11:19 PM

Wait, it'll use my AUTO WORDS AS WELL?

NOW THIS IS INTERESTING

JP vs Eng
lololol

Not that I'm even an elite player >.>

Sounds like an alternative to my earlier suggestion of a code:escape though.

dioje

Dec 5, 2012, 11:23 PM

Unless they are actually intelligent and challenging this is nothing more than a fun tidbit for players.

terrell707

Dec 5, 2012, 11:31 PM

Unless they are actually intelligent and challenging this is nothing more than a fun tidbit for players.

They'll probably have NPC Teammate AI. Guess all those rangers with weak shot will be our undoing.

Syklo

Dec 5, 2012, 11:44 PM

They'll probably have NPC Teammate AI. Guess all those rangers with weak shot will be our undoing.
I'd love to get hit by jellen shot and see how good/bad it is

soniczx

Dec 5, 2012, 11:54 PM

I fear of many PA that hardly misses like Rafoie or Elder Rebellion @[email protected]

DoubleCannon

Dec 6, 2012, 12:01 AM

interesting.. I am kinda sad though, will there be no more new areas after this? no episode 2? NO OLGA FLOW!? lol. I WANT BEACH / JUNGLE STAGE!

Ezodagrom

Dec 6, 2012, 12:30 AM

interesting.. I am kinda sad though, will there be no more new areas after this? no episode 2? NO OLGA FLOW!? lol. I WANT BEACH / JUNGLE STAGE!

Since the variety of content appears to be limited, in future updates not only will we “Search through planets, defeat enemies, etc.” like we usually do, but he plans to introduce something completely new. After we reach the story’s conclusion we will move onto a “New Story.”
http://bumped.org/psublog/pso2-jp-ideas-for-next-year/

Sparzyle

Dec 6, 2012, 12:37 AM

interesting.. I am kinda sad though, will there be no more new areas after this? no episode 2? NO OLGA FLOW!? lol. I WANT BEACH / JUNGLE STAGE!
It's a Japanese game, there will be Beach area P:

Angelo

Dec 6, 2012, 02:55 AM

Thinly-veiled attempt at testing player against player balance to prepare for Battle mode.
I'd expect some nerfs and buffs sometime soon.

Sounds incredibly fun and creative though.

This also may be the reason why we're having so many cosmetic glitches with the last patch. I'd guess they're changing the way they're storing character customization data so that a clone can be recreated with some 'Darker' effects.

Syklo

Dec 6, 2012, 03:35 AM

I personally haven't seen any cosmetic glitches,

heck, they seem like enhancements to me so far.

On a related note, I seem to notice a lot more foliage in the forest area.
Or at least, an intensified bloom effect.

jooozek

Dec 6, 2012, 03:41 AM

That is so rogue-like (DCSS for example (http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Player_ghost))

supersonix9

Dec 6, 2012, 03:50 AM

Nice.

Meji

Dec 6, 2012, 03:57 AM

Okay, so, imagine if you're playing a LV50 character and decide to help a few of your fellow friends to level through the Normal stages. If you get caught as a clone...

Angelo

Dec 6, 2012, 04:20 AM

Spoilers: Everyone is Sora

Ce'Nedra

Dec 6, 2012, 04:47 AM

This attack of the clones idea sounds very cool. I can't wait to beat ya all down :>

Syklo

Dec 6, 2012, 04:55 AM

Spoilers: Everyone is Sora
This.

DoubleCannon

Dec 6, 2012, 10:25 AM

funny thing here is, Once I have my hunter to level 50 which is soonish, My guy will have 1900 S-def =D so don't go striking me as it will be (Not very effective) I SHALL BE FALZ TANK HUNAR!

Crysteon

Dec 6, 2012, 11:52 AM

Well...at least it's a clone of yourself and not....your Shadow.

If you know what I mean, lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4V7WoNDW74

Link1275

Dec 6, 2012, 11:59 AM

Well...at least it's a clone of yourself and not....your Shadow.

If you know what I mean, lol.

Persona 4 - Boss: Shadow Kanji (1/2) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4V7WoNDW74)
What happened to Shadow Link? And what the heck is up with the wierdos in that video you posted?

Ryoten

Dec 6, 2012, 12:01 PM

So fighting against ones self & using the same abilities we have will be awesome! I can see b20 fighting everyone popular here & there so Nassy...beware. ^^

Alenoir

Dec 6, 2012, 12:17 PM

They're gonna have different people kidnapped and their data recorded, and you yourself have a higher chance of seeing your clone than anyone else's. You also get more Photon Spheres for defeating your own clone.

Edit: The way SakaiP worded it make it sounds like clone encounter is a field e-trial, not while you're escaping.

Aeris

Dec 6, 2012, 12:38 PM

Why does the title reminds me of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones lol

Crysteon

Dec 6, 2012, 12:41 PM

They can easily steal data from Friend Partner characters and do whatever they want with it. I dont really expect clones to have a better AI than the current FP chars' one...so yeah, sounds like cakewalk as usual.

Zyrusticae

Dec 6, 2012, 12:50 PM

funny thing here is, Once I have my hunter to level 50 which is soonish, My guy will have 1900 S-def =D so don't go striking me as it will be (Not very effective) I SHALL BE FALZ TANK HUNAR!
What's your R-def and T-def? ;-)

DoubleCannon

Dec 6, 2012, 02:29 PM

What's your R-def and T-def? ;-)

well as a fighter before those were 1.1k each.. hard to say but once I have my hunter at 50 (46 atm) and I switch back I will post a pic of my max stats :)

although I need demo comet! or else I am not worthy to be elite :( lol

Punisher106

Dec 6, 2012, 03:45 PM

Falz will surely be fun as a FI. As for this little special emergency quest that's being talked about, I wonder how it would be like, fighting myself.

Syklo

Dec 6, 2012, 06:00 PM

Only viable threat would probably be Brave/Wise Forces with Rafoie/Grants/Sabarta (if freeze works on pureiyas). Though it they're just doing NPC level damage it'd just be a minor inconvenience more than anything.

Ah yeah, S.E Boosted Forces, or Gunners who have decent S.E levels on their Guns could probably be obnoxious too. Particularly anything involving being frozen. But hell, this really only affects melee folk anyway.
S.E.?

Skyly HUmar

Dec 6, 2012, 06:10 PM

They'll probably have NPC Teammate AI. Guess all those rangers with weak shot will be our undoing.

I dont think rangers can weak shot players, back when you could attack others wile you were confused, me and a buddy tested it out on the many japanese players in our mpa (yeah I know dick move but hell, they were failing avoid for us like 4 seconds after the code spawned so we just decided to kill some XP.).

Well, we saw that headshots on players are not twice as dammaging, and wb does not work on players either.

@ Syklo: Status effects

Xaeris

Dec 6, 2012, 06:12 PM

If it were available more widely, I'd be making a pair of machine guns with Panic IV on them for the explicit purpose of giving my clone the ability to piss everyone off.

Cyron Tanryoku

Dec 6, 2012, 06:12 PM

Meh, they'll probably be more like the Masked Man than Friend NPCs

Syklo

Dec 6, 2012, 07:04 PM

inb4 the clones come in a group with ressurrectionist AI and revive each other with moon atomizers

Coatl

Dec 6, 2012, 07:04 PM

Everyone has their hopes up lol.
:I

Keyblade59

Dec 6, 2012, 07:05 PM

I fear my clone with turn the quest in the quest after I get owned and I will seize to exist.

NoiseHERO

Dec 6, 2012, 07:12 PM

I'm a shounen protagonist so I'm already used to having multiple evil clones.

Omega-z

Dec 6, 2012, 08:12 PM

LOL, A clone of mine would be like playing PSI again and fighting the old school Dezorian's again.:)

Aquayoshi

Dec 6, 2012, 09:23 PM

It would be terrible hilariously lulzy if our clones kept the exact same stats as us except for HP. They would be doing the same kind of damage that players do against players. Think about it: we have a tiny amount of HP but deal massive amounts of damage relative to enemies. Now imagine that our clones started WBing us and then hitting thousands of damage for massive overkill.

Honestly, it's an awful idea, but it would be a hilarious dick move on Sega's part. What I could see happening more plausibly, though, is assuming that they did keep our stats, the clones' defenses would reduce our damage down to the same levels that monsters hit us for, and vice versa. This would be way cooler than giving clones generic NPC-like stats (which Sega is probably much more likely to do, anyway), because it really would be like an indirect form of PvP.

You'd have to look at the characters' class and figure out which of their defense stats is lowest, then hit them with that kind of damage, for example (Low R-def -> use guns/gunblade. Low S-def -> use melee/gunblade. Low T-def -> use techs). You'd also have to watch what weapons and PAs they're using and counter accordingly.

I'm also excited at the prospect of having humanoid enemies to headshot (Dinians don't count). Using a rifle in one of these missions is probably going to be a lot of fun.

Laxedrane

Dec 6, 2012, 10:21 PM

Or go through the shocking realization that XI PVP had which was that player characters surprisingly had a lot more defense and evasion then monsters do which made a lot of people hate xi pvp becuase it easily halved their E peen and made them rage to much to give it a shot.

Not that there weren't other perfectly good reasons to be made at XI PvP since they stop trying to balancing after their only cross server tournament which was easily 6-8 years ago in a 10 year old game.

Anyways if they do retain the player stats the techer/hunter or vice versa players are going to be very annoying to kill if spec'ed right.